AECL has more than 50 years experience in safely handling, packaging, transporting, storing and disposing of radioactive waste in a sound, environmentally friendly manner at Chalk River (Ontario, Canada) and Whiteshell (Manitoba, Canada), and decommissioned sites including Douglas Point (Ontario, Canada). AECL also operates the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO) on behalf of the Federal Government of Canada. The LLRWMO is responsible for the cleanup and monitoring of historic radioactive waste sites across Canada. Through our extensive R&D program and applications engineering, AECL has developed expertise in all areas of High-level and Intermediate/Low-level waste streams.

AECL’s leadership in this field was recognized as early as 1960 when the company participated in the IAEA’s study on decommissioning nuclear facilities. AECL was one of the first companies in the world to successfully decommission nuclear reactors. We decommissioned early Canadian research and prototype reactors at Chalk River, Whiteshell, Douglas Point, Gentilly 1 and Rolphton. The skills and processes developed during these projects were also used to decommission nuclear facilities for our customers in Ottawa and Etobicoke. The Tunney’s Pasture (Ottawa) commercial contract returned a former isotope production facility to green field status and subsequent use for normal residential/commercial business.

CANDU Services offers the following waste-management-related products and expertise, based on AECL’s long-term experience:

MACSTOR
AECL developed MACSTOR (Modular Air-Cooled STORage) to provide on-site storage of dry spent fuel for CANDU utility customers around the world. Based on passive physics and engineering principles, MACSTOR modules provide highly efficient heat-rejection and shielding. MACSTOR can save up to one-third of the space required by comparable systems, while reducing manpower and operating and construction costs. In addition, MACSTOR permits easy fuel retrieval at the time of final disposal. MACSTOR modules are currently installed and operating at Gentilly 2 in Quebec and at the Cernavoda site in Romania. AECL’s new, more space efficient and economical version MACSTOR400 product can accommodate spent fuel on a smaller footprint at sites where real estate is at a premium.

Waste Management Operation
The Waste Management Operation at Chalk River Laboratories (Ontario, Canada) operates waste processing and storage facilities for a wide range of radioactive, hazardous and non-hazardous wastes. The Waste Management Operation manages all wastes generated at the AECL laboratories, selected wastes from other AECL sites and radioactive wastes generated by external Canadian commercial generators (e.g., hospitals, research institutions, industry and the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office).